Page 153 of Avenging Azalea

He looked at the two bodies, steadily bleeding out onto the floor.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“No, do you know what you’ve done?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? That was Pasha’s son. He was here for a job interview.”

I shrugged. “I really don’t give a fuck.”

Reaching into my jacket I pulled out the contract that he’d given Fawn at dinner. I held it up for him to see.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out or let this slide?” I swiped the lighter he used for his cigars off the desk and lit the contract on fire before dropping it in the metal waste paper basket. I tossed the lighter on his desk.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the black velvet bag. Three keys and three fingers fell out onto Dimitri’s desk. He swore as he looked at the manicured nails and the fancy rings that had been purchased for his mistresses’ fingers.

“I want you to know that I know everything.” He opened his mouth, and I pointed the gun at him, snapping his mouth shut. “Don’t insult me and tell me you don’t know what I mean. If I squint really hard, I can almost see why you did it.”

Dimitri’s eyes hardened. “Everything I have ever done has been for this family. I built this for my sons,” he said, with the hollow tone of a man watching his kingdom decay from the inside out. I scoffed. “What? You think I’m lying? Everything I did…the deals, the blood, the sacrifices, all of it was so my sons never had to beg for power.” He shook his head. “Then Nathaniel goes and marries an FBI agent, utter humiliation. Now you walk away to be with some penniless girl who…” I cocked the hammer on the gun, and the girls growled louder.

“Careful what you say next.”

“Are you planning to kill me, son?”

“No, I’m not. Because, unlike you, I’m loyal to this family and know that killing you would only tear us further apart.”

“Then what are you going to do to me?”

I smirked. “Nothing, at least not physically, but every time you see my empty seat at the table, you’ll remember this moment and how you drove a second son away. I won’t ever forgive you, and if you push me again, or go anywhere near the woman I love…” I gestured toward the desk. “Just know that I, too, can make people disappear.”

I let the statement I’d never thought I would say hang in the air between us. Our eyes remained locked, and after a moment, he opened the box on his desk that held his cigars. Pulling one out, he clipped the end and lit it.

“I didn’t think you had this in you, son. I really didn’t. It makes me proud,” he said.

“With the right motivation, you’d be surprised what I’m capable of,” I said, putting the gun away as I walked to the office door with Bella and Daisy pressed against my legs.

I paused in the doorway. “Oh, and you have a clean-up to take care of at your secretary’s desk.”

Dimitri didn’t move. He just sat there smoking his cigar like it was a regular Tuesday morning, like the world wasn’t shifting beneath his feet. But I saw it. That flicker in his eyes. The part of him that knew this wasn’t just another argument. This was the death of our relationship.

One of his sons had already walked away from the business. From him. And now, I was severing all ties. There was only one final thread left in a legacy built on blood and control, but if he wasn’t careful, Ronan would turn his back on him. He knew it.

No matter how composed he had stayed, this would haunt him. Maybe not tonight. But later, when the smoke cleared and no one came home for holidays or Sunday meals. When he didn’t get to see his grandchildren and wasn’t invited to yet another wedding, it was a fissure that had gotten wider until it was a deep, bottomless ravine.

The most fucked up part…he believed he was right.

Deep down, under all the ruthless decisions and warped loyalty, Dimitri Mikhailov thought he’d been protecting us. Building an empire. Saving a family. He never understood that the thing he built, and the control he wielded with no regard, were what broke us.

I wanted to hate him, but there was a part of me that still saw him as my father. A part of me remembered throwing a football in the yard, how he ruffled my hair or took me fishing, and how he showed me the ropes of business. Even if he’d destroyed what he sought to build, he’d instilled family loyalty in me, and I would hold the family together long after he was gone.

A part of me had simply hoped that he was capable of change. It was optimistic and would most likely never happen, but I could hope. I sure as hell wasn’t going to become him.

I might have physically stepped out of his office, but in reality…I’d stepped out of his life and into the one that I chose, not one he chose for me.

Epilogue

FAWN

SEVEN MONTHS LATER – MAY